The Gospel According to John (American Standard Version, 1901) · 1 of 37 · tr. American Standard Version (1901)
1:1-1:29
[1:1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
[1:2] The same was in the beginning with God.
[1:3] All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made.
[1:4] In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
[1:5] And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not.
[1:6] There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John.
[1:7] The same came for witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him.
[1:8] He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light.
[1:9] There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world.
[1:10] He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not.
[1:11] He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not.
[1:12] But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name:
[1:13] who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
[1:14] And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.
[1:15] John beareth witness of him, and crieth, saying, This was he of whom I said, He that cometh after me is become before me: for he was before me.
[1:16] For of his fulness we all received, and grace for grace.
[1:17] For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
[1:18] No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
[1:19] And this is the witness of John, when the Jews sent unto him from Jerusalem priests and Levites to ask him, Who art thou?
[1:20] And he confessed, and denied not; and he confessed, I am not the Christ.
[1:21] And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elijah? And he saith, I am not. Art thou the prophet? And he answered, No.
[1:22] They said therefore unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?
[1:23] He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said Isaiah the prophet.
[1:24] And they had been sent from the Pharisees.
[1:25] And they asked him, and said unto him, Why then baptizest thou, if thou art not the Christ, neither Elijah, neither the prophet?
[1:26] John answered them, saying, I baptize in water: in the midst of you standeth one whom ye know not,
[1:27] even he that cometh after me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose.
[1:28] These things were done in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
[1:29] On the morrow he seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!
In Western Hermetic Qabalah, the specific harmonizing cosmic force symbolised by Tiphareth, the central Sephira of the Tree of Life — the equilibriating, compensating, healing, redeeming, and purifying factor of the universe, recognised by the occultist as one power among the hierarchy of supreme cosmic forces rather than assigned the exclusive position it holds for the Christian mystic. Distinct from logos (the ordering principle through which the universe was created, not this specific mediating/healing Sephirotic force) and trinity (a claim about the Godhead's internal three-personed structure, not a single emanation's function within a tenfold system).
The Word functions as the mediating, redeeming, and purifying cosmic force: 'grace and truth came through Jesus Christ' (v. 17) and 'the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world' (v. 29) describe a harmonizing and healing agency.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
'In the beginning was the Word' and 'All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made' constitute a clear narrative of cosmic origin through the Logos.
A binding agreement or relationship between the divine and a people or individual, establishing mutual obligations.
The contrast 'the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ' (v. 17) implies a new binding relationship superseding the Mosaic covenant.
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
The supreme God is radically concealed: 'No man hath seen God at any time' (v. 18), the world 'knew him not' (v. 10), and 'his own received him not' (v. 11), establishing the Hidden Father who is declared only by the Son.
The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.
The light motif is sustained throughout (vv. 4–11): 'the life was the light of men,' 'the true light, even the light which lighteth every man,' and John bears witness 'of the light,' making luminous divine revelation a structural pillar.
The doctrine that the divine or a spiritual principle takes on a specific, bounded material or bodily form — descending from an unconditioned state into individual, corporeal existence — as a discrete act rather than a diffuse pervading presence. The Christian Word made flesh, the Hindu avatara, the Egyptian pharaoh as living Horus, the Vajrayana tulku. Distinct from divine_immanence (the general claim that the divine pervades all of creation diffusely, not a specific embodiment-event) and separation_from_source (the felt exile FROM origin, the opposite motion) in describing a specific, individuated descent INTO a particular body or form.
Verse 14 explicitly states 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,' making the discrete descent of the divine into a specific bodily form the climactic theological claim of the passage.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
The entire prologue is structured around the Logos — 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' — as the creative, mediating, and incarnate principle.
The divine fullness or totality of the highest realm, populated by aeons and divine attributes, contrasted with the deficient material world.
Verse 16 uses the explicit term 'fulness' (πλήρωμα): 'For of his fulness we all received, and grace for grace,' identifying the divine totality from which believers partake.
The phenomenon where spiritual messengers or healers are rejected by their own community due to familiarity or lack of awe.
'He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not' (vv. 10–11) directly narrates the rejection of the divine messenger by his own community.
The Self-Begotten (Autogenes) — the great angel and 'God of the Light' who emerges from the luminous cloud at the supreme Spirit's command and organizes the aeons, luminaries, and realms of light; the Sethian first-born of the divine fullness, distinct from the demiurge in being an emanation of light rather than an ignorant creator.
The 'only begotten from the Father' (v. 14) and 'only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father' (v. 18) describe a first-born divine figure who emerges from the Father and declares him, structurally analogous to the Sethian Self-Begotten.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
'To them gave he the right to become children of God' (v. 12) and 'born… of God' (v. 13) articulate a transformative participation in divine nature as the soteriological goal.